Safe Trans Travel: Welcoming & Affirming Places

The travel experience is slowly improving for the transgender community, but many obstacles remain.

By: Andrew Collins*/Travel Columnist

“You could feel the electricity going through people. You could actually feel it. People were getting really, really pissed and uptight. I just said to myself, ‘Oh my God, the revolution is finally here,’ and I just like started screaming ‘freedom, we’re free at last!’” This is how Sylvia Ray Rivera, the Latinx transgender activist, described that momentous night of the Stonewall Riots, 50 years ago. Indeed, what most people consider the start of the modern gay rights movement began with a diverse crowd of patrons protesting outside the Stonewall Inn. Several of those brave souls, including Marsha P. Johnson—who would also become a prominent activist—were transgender.

For LGBTQ travelers, the world has changed dramatically, largely in positive ways, since 1969. While virulent homophobia and discrimination still exists in far too many places, destinations and travel-related businesses all over the world now enthusiastically court and welcome gay travelers. But for transgender travelers, measuring progress—and deciding where to plan vacations—is a bit more complicated than for many other members of the queer community.